Note: This column represents the opinions
of the writer and as such, is not purported as fact
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Online banking must be one of the most incredibly useful applications of
the Internet.
Instead of wasting time standing in long queues at the bank or an ATM, online
banking lets you check your balances, shuffle money around, and even pay bills --
all from the comfort and security of your own home.
Oh, did I say security?
Well by and large, most online banking systems are very secure and there
are few documented cases of significant problems.
Check Out The Aardvark PC-Based Digital
Entertainment Centre Project
Updated 2-Dec-2002
However, the banks are aware that some people might be a little worried about
the safety of their savings or pay cheques when they can be accessed over the
Internet, so they go to extraordinary lengths to give customers the warm fuzzies.
Take the latest entrant into the local banking market for instance...
Yes, SuperBank is here.
SuperBank is, according to their website, a joint venture between the St George
Bank of Australia and Foodstuffs, the operator of a large number of supermarkets.
The idea of being able to do your banking while you buy the week's groceries
probably seems like a good one to some people -- but I find those checkout
queues are already too long and slow moving already. Add a few people who
slow things down by asking about banking matters and I can see a few problems
appearing.
But let's get back to the matter of security.
On this page
SuperBank calms your fears by explaining a bit about 128 bit encryption and
talking about "St.George Bank, with its excellent security record". Funny
how there are no links to these stories eh?
But hang on, things must be better now -- right?
Well clicking further into the SuperBank website leads us to
this page
which offers "Extra Security Advice".
Perhaps the most interesting element of this page is some advice to
"Check the SEcurity Server Certificate" where it explains how
to make sure that you're connected to the real SuperBank webserver and
not a "fake".
Golly gosh -- there's even the ability to open a new account online
from the Open an Account page.
Look what I got when I tried this yesterday.
Just to make sure it wasn't a problem with my trusty Netscape browser, I tried
again with Internet Explorer 6 and
here's what I got.
How embarrassing!
However, I notice that this morning they've sorted the problem (probably after
an unknown number of complaints) and it now works with IE6 -- although my
Netscape brings up a "404 page not found" error when clicking on that link.
Okay, so it's early days for the bank and its website -- but who on earth
was responsible for allowing it to go online with an invalid secure server
certificate?
If their testing of such fundamental aspects as this is flawed, what other
gremlins might be waiting inside?
I think I'll keep my hard-earned cash right where it is, at least for the
time being.
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publication of Aardvark, the bills still exceed the income by a fairly
significant amount. It is with this in mind therefore that I'm once
again soliciting donations from anyone who feels they're getting some
value from this daily column and news index. I've gone the PayPal
way of accepting donations because the time involved in processing a bunch
of little credit-card billings sometimes exceeds the monetary value they
represent. Just click on the button to donate whatever you can afford.
NOTE: PayPal bills in US dollars so don't accidentally donate twice
what you were intending :-)
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